1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for verifying the identity of a person, without informing the person that verification of the person's identity is being performed.
2. Prior Art
There are well known methods and techniques used to verify the identity of a person. A popular method is the comparison of the face of a person with a reliable photograph, for example, a photograph on one's driver's license. One problem with this form of verification is that driver's licenses, complete with photograph, can be falsified. This is also true with passports and passport photographs.
Another method and apparatus for identification verification include the taking and comparing of finger prints, while more sophisticated methods and apparatus verify persons by voice patterns and also by distinctive patterns in the retina of the eye. The former verification method is widely used by law enforcement organizations. It provides strong verification but it is dirty, requiring the use of finger print ink, and an experienced finger print taking person for making an acceptable finger print on a form. The latter two methods require very sophisticated and expensive apparatus and, in all of the above methods, the person whose identity is being verified or challenged, is aware that his or her identification is being challenged.
It has been found that the hands of individuals are distinctive. Some U.S. patent that teach scanning the physical dimensions of the human hand for identification verification include the patents:
______________________________________ 3,576,537 to Ernst 1971 3,648,240 to Jacoby et al 1972 4,669,487 to Frieling 1987 4,720,869 to Wadia 1988 4,736,203 to Sidlauskas 1988 ______________________________________
Generally, the teachings of the Ernst patent; the Jacoby et al patent and the Wadia patent relate to two dimensional scanning of the hand where the hand is placed on a scanning plate which performs the scanning. The teaching in the Sidlauskas patent covers three dimensional scanning whilet the patent to Frieling teaches apparatus for sensing the thickness and longitudinal distance between adjacent knuckles of the finger of the hand. In each of these teachings it is inherent that the person whose identification is being verified, is acutely aware that his identity is being challenged.
The U.S. Pat. No.:
______________________________________ 4,732,965 to Dunkley et al 1988 4,856,077 to Rothfjell 1989 5,150,420 to Haraguchi 1992 5,347,589 to Meeks et al 1994 ______________________________________
relate to verifying a person's identification through a hand written signature or hand writing comparison.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,495,644 to Parks et al, in 1985 teaches using other characteristics relating to one's handwriting, rather than handwriting itself, for a personal verification. Gladstone, in his U.S. Pat. No. 5,018,208, issued in 1991 teaches the use of a pressure detection device incorporated into a writing instrument, which relates to the pressure applied by the writer, through the writing device, when writing with the writing device.
Basically, all the above cited prior art require some degree of conscious cooperation on the part of the person whose identification is being challenged. It is often undesirable and sometimes embarrassing to ask a person to engage in an act that has an objective of challenging a person's identification. The present invention overcomes the undesirable aspect of challenging one's identity by accomplishing the challenging act surreptitiously, while the person is performing a normally required act.